I TREMBLED, covering my face with the duvet and mumbled: “I know what you are.

“You are one pint too many of Rosy Nosey Christmas real ale. You are that kebab I had last night. You are the result of that strange cigarette I smoked at a party in 1979. You are…”

The apparition, in platform shoes, Oxford bags and tank-top, thrust out a bony hand in a command for silence.

“I,” boomed the figure, a crown of holly resting on his permed head, “am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

A spiced, heavy scent filled the room. “I know that smell,” I stammered. “It’s Brut or Cedar Wood by Goya – they used to advertise it all the time on Radio Luxem…”

“Silence!” commanded the spirit. “Touch the sleeve of my Parka coat.”

With that, I was transported to a school hall. On stage, children played out the Nativity scene. I smiled as tots tripped over lines.

“I can see my classmates, Spirit,” I fussed. “There’s Cox as Joseph.” He refused to blow his nose, despite repeated shouts from his mother, on the grounds Joseph didn’t have a hanky, either.

“Use a clump of straw then,” pleaded his embarrassed mom.

And there was Wendy Jenkins as Mary, tinsel tastefully wrapped round her hearing aid.

“But where am I?” The ghost pointed to the left side of the stage. “I’m a bloody pig…again,” I moaned. At that, the little boy, a curly tail attached to his short trousers, let out a plaintive ‘baaaaa’.

“It was a last minute thing,” I explained. “I’d been rehearsing as the sheep, but they switched livestock at the last minute.”

Apparition

“Money and career were not your masters then,” intoned the grim apparition.

“That was because I was a pig. Duh!”

“You seem to have had an accident,” remarked my Christmas guide. The overweight child with a curly tail attached to his short trousers was squatting in a puddle. With one arm raised aloft, he pleaded, ‘Miss, Miss!’

‘Miss’ shouted from the wings: “Use a clump of straw, Michael.”

“I was bringing method acting to the role, OK?” I squirmed. “Spirit, take me from this awful place.”

With that, I was transported to a neon-lit hall, its floor lashed with lager, its crumbling, sweating walls pulsating under a bass and drum assault.

In a corner of the crowded room a pimply youth jerked, writhed and occasionally howled to the cheesy disco music.

“Bloody hell, it’s Evans. As an epileptic, he could never get on with strobe lighting.”

I cast a despairing glance at the swaying individual, in electric green, hooped socks, staring longingly at young women dancing round their handbags.

“Can it really be me, Spirit?” I asked, excitedly. “Did I really drink cider and smoke Players Number 10s?”

The Ghost nodded slowly.

I walked over to the grinning, glassy-eyed youth and, straining to be heard above the thumping beat, shouted: “That really attractive blonde over there, doing The Bump with her friend, is making eye contact all the time. Put your pint down and ask her to dance, for heaven’s sake.”

“He cannot hear you,” the ghost announced solemnly. “He will not dance with the attractive blonde. He will not dance with anyone until the slow numbers at the very end of the evening, then he will lurch across the room and dance with her…”